


Fifty Years

by Nihonkikuasa211



Category: Code Black (TV)
Genre: Emotional Maturity, Gen, Internal Monologue, Tag to 1x16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 05:28:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5993179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nihonkikuasa211/pseuds/Nihonkikuasa211
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mario's internal monologue after 1x16.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fifty Years

_Fifty Years_                                            

 

            _"I don't know. We all have stuff we believe. Heaven, afterlife, reincarnation. Everything someone believes in is gonna sound crazy to someone else."  
_

           _We all have to believe in something,_ Mario thought. His mind wandered to the shift before, remembering the young girl named Lizzie. She had believed in something that no one would have believed in. Freezing your brain and vital organs for many years until they became unfrozen again, living again without any complications that she had suffered throughout her life. That was all Mario knew. Some people would consider it a cult. A lie given to people so crazy they would believe anything. Although it had been seven months since he had first started his residency in Angels, Mario could still remember Mama’s words. _“People come here for one thing. One last miracle.”_

_Did we give that miracle to her, Mama?_ Mario thought as his thoughts wandered to the crying husband as he removed the breathing mask from his beloved wife’s face. _Did we give her the miracle that she needed?_

The face of James as he stated that he believed, that he would see Lizzie again, haunted Mario’s mind. It wasn’t often that the dark-haired resident had connected with his patients. He saw hundreds of them every day. And yet...the image of Lizzie talking to her devastated husband about fifty years and cell phones and the small smile James gave his wife as he told her they would go to the moon echoed in Mario’s mind. His own voice, which had been so cold before, cracked, as he stated that he would leave them. Would he find someone like that, Mario wondered? Find someone that you couldn’t live without out, a person that made you laugh even in the darkest of times and the face of death, and talk about meeting you again in fifty years?

            _“We’ll be together again.”_

Mario swallowed, willing himself not to cry – not to cry at all as he remembered almost calling the time of death as James started to shout. It had been hard. It had been so hard. Mario hadn’t thought that calling the time of death would be so painful. One life, that had dreams and hopes and memories and a _life_...just gone.

            Like Gina Perello.

            Like his parents.

            Like Ted, whose words never seemed to fade from his mind.

            Mario’s voice had started to crack as he began to call the time of death, his mind screaming at him to keep doing the compressions with Dr. Guthrie’s soulful eyes watching him as Mario remained silent. _Am I still you, Ted?_ Mario thought as he stared blankly at the early morning sky. It seemed almost impossible that it could be such a beautiful day when two lives had ended. For although Mario had heard James say he believed Lizzie, the grief from her death would bind him, and then he would see that Lizzie was never coming back. Not in fifty years, or seventy-five. Not ever. Mario didn’t know what to do if James showed at Angels with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head. Like Gary, who had forced Mario and Heather to save his dead wife’s life with agony as the blood suddenly stained the broken man as he tried to commit suicide. Although most would not know it, Mario knew suicide more than people knew. He had contemplated it once, when he had once thought he was better dead and then the pain – physically feeling as if he was dying, would stop.

            Mario still remembered Heather’s expression as she scornfully told him of what she thought of those people who believed in that _“crap.”_ How was it that he had become so mature? Before, he wouldn’t have cared about Lizzie or James. He would have made some comment about agreeing with Heather even though he truly didn’t care what anyone thought. Staring at Heather now, and looking back at his former self, Mario realized of how wrong both of them were.

            About everything.

            The first-year resident could still remember the burning shock and anger as he realized that Heather was actually doing this as a side-job – she didn’t care about the lives of people who believed that they would meet their loved ones again after their bodies were unfrozen, or the pain and faint hope of the loved ones of seeing that one single precious person again. Mario was no person to judge a person’s actions. But still, the thought of the disrespect and cold feeling towards the work that Heather did, just for the money, turned his stomach.

            _People believe in whatever they believe in. Anything,_ Mario thought, _for the pain and suffering to cease. For there being hope at the end. And hope...that itself is what I used to call foolish._ Mario stared at the sun, wondering wherever she was now, if Lizzie could see it. _Hope and bravery, is another word for stupidity or foolishness, to some people. When people die, they are happy with the thought they will get to see their loved ones again...for the pain to cease and for sleep to come for people that I used to belong to._

_And now I understand Mama’s words._

“A miracle,” Mario whispered, his voice cracking at the memory of Lizzie’s and James’ last conversation, of James sobbing and shouting as Mario was about to call the time of death. “One more miracle.”

            He was crying, but Mario was not ashamed.


End file.
